Bluetooth 2.0

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020611S0033">http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020611S0033</a><br /><br />Many would argue that Bluetooth 1.x is still half-baked, at least in regards to some of the products on the market out there now, but the creators of Bluetooth are pushing ahead with the 2.0 spec. More bandwidth is always nice, but they mention that it's "non-hopping" which will defeat one of the major security features of Bluetooth. Still, with a range of 10 meters, it's still a personal area network so hacking is unlikely (but not impossible).<br /><br />"A scientist at Ericsson Technology Licensing has leaked the basic features of the upcoming Bluetooth 2.0 wireless communications specification targeted at personal-area networks, which has been kept under wraps by the standards-setting Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The 2.0 spec is expected to support gross rates of 4, 8 and 12 Mbits per second, said chief scientist Jaap Haartsen in a speech prior to the Bluetooth Congress here.<br /><br />The 2.0 spec will offer new communication modes on top of the current Bluetooth by using "a non-hopping narrowband channel and distributed media-access control protocols," said Haartsen. The higher-rate mode is also designed to provide "faster response times and built-in quality-of-service, and offer broadcast/multicast support," he said. Bluetooth 2.0 is expected to operate over the same 10-meter distance as the present Bluetooth. Its peak power consumption is expected to be double that of the current Bluetooth." Source: angelseye2000

[tjy]

I don't understand why you say hacking of Bluetooth is unlikely. Granted, the range is only 10 meters. But, one of the features, as I understand Bluetooth, is that you can be walking through a Mall and receive sales information or buy a Coke from a machine. This implies that some type of account information is passing through Bluetooth. Unscrupulous hackers can attack the servers in the Mall, then, when you communicate, obtain your account data. I would expect many other concepts of hacking to appear when Bluetooth is in general use. One could also send some type of virus from these Mall servers to your PDA. In fact, this would be a very opportune time to do that. Am I off base with these ideas.
tjy

[Jason Dunn]

This implies that some type of account information is passing through Bluetooth. Unscrupulous hackers can attack the servers in the Mall, then, when you communicate, obtain your account data.

I'm certainly not a Bluetooth security expert, but I believe I read that Bluetooth frequency hops 1600 times per second, which makes it difficult to hack. Some more information:

http://www.swedetrack.com/images/bluet11.htm

Granted, Bluetooth has it's share of security critics:
http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~jiitv/bluesec.html

[Duncan]

Jason,

We get that you don't like Bluetooth - but this constant claim that it only has a range of 10 metres is getting silly (almost as silly as the - I didn't see it work once with a Palm device so it's a bad technology - argument or the - there are hardly any Bluetooth devices out there - argument). 10 metres is the minimum. I got better than that with just an iPAQ and an r520m! BT Access points can manage up to a 100 metres!

BT and WiFi are both here - BT has a far wider range of uses than WiFi and is more secure - WiFi is a much better option for Wireless LANS. Each has good implementations and each has bad. What is so hard about this? Why this seemingly pathological need to rubbish BT?

Jason - when you talk about BT being 'half-baked' you sound for all the world like a Palm user does when trying to argue Palm is better than the Pocket PC because of longer battery life... :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Gee, thanks for the tongue-lashing. 8O

We get that you don't like Bluetooth - but this constant claim that it only has a range of 10 metres is getting silly

"Bluetooth 2.0 is expected to operate over the same 10-meter distance as the present Bluetooth." - that's a quote from the article, NOT something I said. I've never used a Bluetooth access point, so I'm not aware of the distances. I thought that device to device it was 30 feet or so - hence the "personal area network" concept. 100 meters is getting much closer to the LAN concept of 802.11x isn't it?

Jason - when you talk about BT being 'half-baked' you sound for all the world like a Palm user does when trying to argue Palm is better than the Pocket PC because of longer battery life... :roll:

Let's look at exactly what I said:

"Many would argue that Bluetooth 1.x is still half-baked, at least in regards to the products on the market out there now"

Notice that I mentioned the PRODUCTS, not the TECHNOLOGY itself. I think the IDEA of Bluetooth is great, but the IMPLEMENTATION in some of the PRODUCTS leaves a lot to be desired. I should have said SOME products, to be fair, so I've edited my original post to reflect that.

I'm thrilled that Bluetooth worked for you, but how can you explain the sheer difficultly myself, Ed, and many others have had when trying to use Bluetooth devices together? Are we all idiots? How can you explain this article (http://www6.tomshardware.com/network/02q2/020626/index.html) where computer expects run into all sorts of trouble with some Bluetooth products yet with others it works smoothly.

CONSUMERS don't care about how solid the technology is if the IMPLEMENTATION sucks. In the eyes of most people, the IMPLEMENTATION and the TECHNOLOGY are exactly the same - if they get in a new car and it won't start, they're going to blame the entire car, not just the battery that went dead.

Some of you people are SO sensitive about Bluetooth. Do you own stocks or something? :wink:

[Crash Biker]

Jason,

I am a long time reader and an avid PocketPC fan and, whilst I would agree that Duncan wasn't very diplomatic, I think I can see his point.

I have an iPAQ, have been using Windows CE since a Philips Nino and really enjoy following the community and news updates here, for which many thanks.

I understand many more people have Palm devices than PocketPC, and each of them probably has a dozen good reasons why for them it was a better choice of device. I understand this and accept that my iPAQ has some flaws, but one of the reasons I enjoy PocketPCThoughts is that I really don't wish to watch a "who's best" argument, I'd rather play along with like minded souls such as myself. If every PocketPC article you wrote started "Many would argue that PocketPC 2002 is full of bugs, has a limited application set and poor battery life but today a new widget was launched ..." it would be no fun to follow along.

It just so happens I also have an Ericsson Bluetooth phone and an iPAQ H3870 which is currently giving me the sort of mobile freedom I can't imagine being as useful/fun as in any other circumstances.

I quite understand that Bluetooth has it's flaws, and certainly don't intend to try and defend the poor workings of its non device to phone modes, but I do find it somewhat less fun to follow along when most bluetooth articles seem to take a swipe at bluetooth in what frequently seems to be an "I don't know why anyone bothers" manner. "Many would argue that Bluetooth 1.x is still half-baked" seems to be in this vein.

For those of us that are PocketPC2002 and Bluetooth fans it just seems to touch a nerve I suppose.

As I said at the top, your site, your rules and much appreciated however you choose to play it, but maybe this helps explain why some of us do react as though we owned shares?

Cheers

Crash

[Jason Dunn]

It just so happens I also have an Ericsson Bluetooth phone and an iPAQ H3870 which is currently giving me the sort of mobile freedom I can't imagine being as useful/fun as in any other circumstances.

I long for the freedom you have, and someday, I hope to have it. Like I said, I really do think Bluetooth is a cool technology that has a LOT of potential, but until some of the people selling the solutions get their act together, it will be a very hit and miss thing.

[Jason Lee]

I just got the toshiba e740. It already had the drivers and software for the toshiba bluetooth sd card. I played with that and read the help file. I really want bluetooth now.
I sat there and staired at the card in my shopping cart on shoptoshiba.com and thought, "Hmmm... That would be so cool. I could pop it into my toshiba and.... Umm... And I could.... Well.. I could ummm..."
I have nothing bluetooth. No bluetooth phones are available in my area. I could probably get a GSM phone imported but with the three blocks of GMS coverage area we have here that would be fairly impractical. I have no printer attachments, no USB dongles for my pc... *sigh* If I could get a BT cell phone I could justify spending money on all those other attachments....
I have heard roomers that Sprint may carry a BT phone soon.. (oh please, oh please)

:)

I like the idea of bluetooth mostly because I hate to cary 6 meters of cable around to connect my phone and ppc....

[Kre]

I love the IDEA of Bluetooth and always have, but the way its been implemented does leave a lot to be desired. No one would argue that the concept of BT is great... I, personally, cant wait for IR to take a dirt nap. When BT works, its fantastic. WHEN it works. Too many people have had too many problems with it not doing what it was originally conceived to do. Its not easy enough for the masses, not even easy enough for a lot of us geeks. Something like BT has to be almost transparent for it to work. It cant require hours of configuring and nonsense like that. Its hit or miss technology at this point and BT will never find the market share it needs to remain and succeed, with this approach. Besides the intial few minutes of time that may be required to configure a couple of devices to `see` each other, it has to be as easy as picking up and using a TV remote. It just has to work.

Read the following article. Some good points are made here...

*The link wasnt working correctly, so click on the link Im providing, click on `Opinions`, and then choose the latest article by Bill Howard, titled `Bluetooth Isnt King, Yet`.*
www.pcmag.com

[Duncan]

Jason,

Wasn't intending to tongue lash - just being completely honest about how I feel you have presented your BT experiences.

I appreciate that the article said 10 metres - but I and others have posted before that his is not the case.

I agree that the implementationof BT in some products is very poor - but I think there is a tendency to forget that the same applies to WiFi products - only there it is the manufacturer who gets the blame and for BT it's the specification! I'm not oversensitive - I just think the scales are unbalanced.

Yes Joe Public - should be able to use BT without thinking - but Joe Public buys over-priced underspecified PCs that they can't make work properly - like any tech - buy the ones that get recommended by the experts and you don't get problems!

To use your car analogy - if the car I buy is rubbish and the engine fails, I blame the makers - I don't decide that the internal combustion engine is a bad thing!

[mikeschmidt]

I also agree with the BT (implementation) bashing. I have been using it for 6+ months on phone, PDA, and laptop and I am having great fun. All people have to do is ask what works and what doesn't. Most people would be glad to help. I know I have helped many people with similar configurations.

I also agree with the similarities between BT vs. WLAN and PPC vs. PALM. I am sick of both arguements. I had a Palm and liked it. I now have a PPC and like it just as much. I also own both WLAN and BT devices. I use each for different purposes.

Can we move on to something more interesting?

- mike

[gwinter]

More bandwidth is always nice, but they mention that it's "non-hopping" which will defeat one of the major security features of Bluetooth.

Jason, I felt compelled to reply to this. I don't agree to that. Frequency hopping is used in Bluetooth 1.x, while "non-hopping" Direct Sequence is used in 802.11b. Both of them are Spread Spectrum technique. The main thing in Spread Spectrum is to use a code sequence to spread the signal across the frequency spectrum. The end result from both kind of implementation looked similiar, without the proper code sequence, the signal appear just like noise.

My point is that security resulting from "hopping" and "non-hopping" is similiar.

[Corn Bread]

Jason,

I got better than that with just an iPAQ and an r520m! BT Access points can manage up to a 100 metres!



100 meters = 328 feet 8O Isn't that exaggerating it a little bit? My house has a BT access point and I'm pretty sure it doesn't reach that far.